Presently he made me look aghast by just this question—‘Is there an attachment between your sister Henrietta and Capt. Cook?’—(put as abruptly as I put it here).
My heart leapt up—as Wordsworth’s to the rainbow in the sky—but there was a recoil in my leap. ‘Why, Mr. Kenyon?’—I said ... ‘what extraordinary questions, opening into unspeakable secrets, you do ask.’
‘But I did not know that it was a secret. How was I to know? I have seen him here very often, and it is a natural enquiry which I might have put to anybody in the house touching a matter open to general observation. I thought the affair might be an arranged one by anybody’s consent.’
‘But you ought to know,’ I answered, ‘that such things are never permitted in this house. So much for the consent. As for the matter itself you are right in your supposition—but it is a great secret,—and I entreat you not to put questions about it to anybody in or out of the house.’ Something to that effect I believe I said—I was frightened ... frightened ... and not exactly for Henrietta. What did he mean?—Had he too in his mind....
He touched on Mrs. Jameson ... just touched ... He had desired my sisters to tell me. He thought I had better write a note to thank her for her kindness. He had told her that if I had any thoughts of Italy they could be accomplished only by a sea-voyage, which was impossible to her.
I briefly expressed a sense of the kindness and said that I meant to write. On which the subject was changed in mutual haste, as seemed to me.
Is not this the book of the chronicles?... And you shall hear again on Tuesday, if the post should be faithful to me that morning. I might be inclined to put off our Tuesday’s meeting, but Mrs. Hedley remains in London for a few days after her daughter’s marriage, and ‘means to see a great deal’ of me—therefore Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,’ ... where should we look, from Tuesday? but I must consider and will write. May God bless you! Do say how you are after that rain. The storm is calm,
and ever and ever I am your own Ba.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 3, 1846.]